Introduction

Drow are a variety of elves typically associated with Lolth, the evil goddess of spiders. Their traits grant additional weapon proficiencies and innate spellcasting, offering additional tactical options to many classes.

Table of Contents

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses a color coding scheme to rate individual character options.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

RPGBOT is fan content published under Larian’s Fan Content Policy. This is not official content, and RPGBOT has no official relationship with Larian.

Drow Traits

  • Base Racial Speed: You can move 9 m / 30 ft per turn.: Standard.
  • Drow Weapon Training: The ability to dual wield hand crossbows and attack with your off-hand crossbow as a Bonus Action means that you will have something useful to do with your Bonus Action in nearly every circumstance. Proficiency in rapiers and shortswords is nice, but almost every class that has any business using them is already proficient in them or in an equivalent weapon, with the possible exception of the Cleric.
  • Superior Darkvision: Mildly useful in some parts of the game, but encounters in darkness almost universally take place within the range of normal Darkvision. The reduced range on spells and ranged attacks compared to the tabletop rules makes this much less of an advantage (unless you use a mod to increase the ranges of things to more accurately reflect tabletop rules).
  • Fey Ancestry: Charm effects aren’t common, but they can take you out of a fight entirely, so Advantage on saves is nice.
  • Keen Sense: Arguably the most important skill in the game.
  • Drow Magic: Dancing Lights is rarely useful, but Faerie Fire is a great support option, and Darkness can give your party a huge tactical advantage if you’re okay with running in and out of the Darkness effect to attack (or if you have Devil’s Sight).

    Note that Drow Magic uses Charisma as your spellcasting ability. This only matters for Faerie Fire, but if you plan to use Faerie Fire it’s best to choose a class that relies on Charisma so that your save DC will be decent.

In addition, you must select a subrace which grants additional traits.

Lolth-Sworn Drow vs. Seldarine Drow

Lolth-sworm Drow worship Lolth, the spider queen. They have red eyes by default and have some unique evil dialog options. Seldarine Drow have rejected Lolth, and, while you’ll still be treated as a drow by NPCs, you won’t see the unique dialog options available to Lolth-sworm Drow.

Neither variety of Drow has any unique mechanical traits.

Classes

Barbarian

The Barbarian doesn’t benefit from Drow Weapon Training or Drow Magic. Any other variety of elf would be a better choice.

Bard

Bards already get proficiency in hand crossbows and rapiers, so the only really interesting trait here is Drow Magic. Bards use Charisma for their spellcasting, which makes Drow Magic a great addition.

Cleric

Proficiency in rapiers and in hand crossbows can be surprisingly useful for clerics. Using a weapon is generally a poor choice beyond low levels, but a rapier is outright better than all of the Cleric’s regular melee weapon options unless your domain grants proficiency in martial weapons. Clerics do have several Bonus Action spells, but you won’t cast those every round, so using your Bonus Action to fire a hand crossbow can squeeze some extra damage out of your action economy.

Drow Magic’s dependence on Charisma means that Faerie Fire won’t be reliable for the Cleric.

Druid

Druids have very little reason to use weapons without using Shillelagh, so proficiency in short swords and rapiers isn’t much help. Using your Bonus Action to fire a hand crossbow can squeeze some extra damage out of your action economy, especially since so few of the Druid’s spells are cast as Bonus Actions.

Drow Magic’s dependence on Charisma means that Faerie Fire won’t be reliable for the Cleric.

Fighter

Fighters already get the same proficiencies granted by Drow Weapon Training.

Drow Magic’s dependence on Charisma means that Faerie Fire won’t be reliable even for Eldritch Knights. Even so, you may find Darkness beneficial.

Monk

Proficiency in hand crossbows can provide a much-needed ranged attack option for the Monk. The ability to cast Darkness for free once per day can be helpful for Way of Shadow Monks.

Paladin

The Paladin has very limited spellcasting, and additional Charisma-based spellcasting can be helpful.

Ranger

Rangers already get the same proficiencies granted by Drow Weapon Training, and Drow Magic’s dependence on Charisma means that Faerie Fire won’t be reliable for the Ranger. Even so, you may find Darkness beneficial.

Rogue

Rogues already get the same proficiencies granted by Drow Weapon Training, and Drow Magic’s dependence on Charisma means that Faerie Fire won’t be reliable even for Arcane Tricksters. Even so, you may find Darkness beneficial.

Sorcerer

Proficiency in hand crossbows allows you to use your Bonus Action consistently without resorting to Quickened Spell.

Drow Magic’s dependence on Charisma means that it fits nicely alongside the Sorcerer’s existing spellcasting.

Warlock

Proficiency in hand crossbows allows you to use your Bonus Action consistently on turns where you’re not casting or re-applying Hex.

Drow Magic’s dependence on Charisma means that it fits nicely alongside the Warlocks’s existing spellcasting.

Wizard

Proficiency in hand crossbows allows you to use your Bonus Action consistently. Wizards have fewer bonus action spells than most other spellcasting classes, so you may find this to be a helpful way to finish off enemies at low hp.

Drow Magic’s dependence on Charisma means that Faerie Fire won’t be reliable for the Ranger.